Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/147

Rh of the building, and is provided with cheap arm-chairs. Admission to the boxes is one dollar, and to the parquette seventy-five cents each.

We attended one evening by invitation, and found a well-dressed and elegant, but not large audience. A company from Cuba gave the "Domino Azul," in good style, and as effectively as the circumstances would admit. The singing and dialogue was in Spanish, and the music of a national character. The audience, men and women, left the boxes and lounged in the galleries, chatting, and smoking cigarritos and sipping fruit-syrup flavored drinks between the acts. The old—always treated with great respect here—and the middle aged and young, occupied seats in the same boxes, and there seemed to be no distinction on account of wealth and dress. The opera house is badly lighted with oil lamps suspended over each box, and the general effect is much marred in consequence. The house yields but six thousand dollars per annum to the city, and of course when money is loaned at five per cent per month, does not pay as a pecuniary investment.

On another evening we attended again, by special invitation, the "Valley of Andorra," being given in honor of Mr. Seward. The boxes, which are usually occupied by the wealthy classes who lean toward Imperialism, were only partially filled, but there was a large array of beauty, and the galleries were crowded with the Republican element. The "Mochos," evidently hate the men of the North, while the common people welcome them. There are no low melodeons in Guadalajara as with us, and with the exception of the bull arena, there are no other places of in-door public amusement in the city.